And all blamed him, for he was in the wrong, and the law is for the punishment of wrongdoers, and no man has a right to take his neighbour’s goods.
Deborah at the time scarcely felt or understood this latter shame.
The first blow had been so strong, so sure, that for the time it paralysed every other feeling beside.
CHAPTER X
It now seemed that a new and different life had begun—one in which the sky was dark and cold and grey, and in which there was no beauty.
They had been very, very poor once before, but now they seemed even poorer, and life seemed a misery and an uncertain drag.
There was still Elinor and Maggie and Deborah at home besides Marion, and Jack, who had come home to study for a Civil Service examination, had not yet obtained an appointment, although he had passed.
He would probably have had to give it up but for the kindly help of a nobleman, the son of a duke, whose tenant the farmer had been, and he was thus enabled to obtain an appointment in the same town.
Elinor went away from home to keep house for an uncle, she being about this time nineteen.
Then set in those days of poverty and greyness and lovelessness which are so bitter to old and young hearts alike. But to Deborah, for the time, the feeling of utter emptiness and desolation deadened all others.